Tuesday, October 30, 2007

On Religion and Cupcakes

I'm not a religious person in the conventional sense. I don't believe in a specific god, but I'm all for a higher power. And yet, growing up in Boston, I knew the meaning of faith.

Baseball is an out and out religion in this town. Out-of-towners or people who "just don't care for sports" don't understand it, but that's fine by us - just let us watch our games in peace. And it's not about how many home runs one guy can hit (although it's nice to count those up too). It's about believing.

So why have I bothered with three Red Sox-related food posts in 2 weeks? Well, most traditional holidays have foods that symbolize them and are meaningful - pomegranates at Christmas, eggs (and Peeps - wait a minute...) at Easter, apples and honey at Rosh Hashanah, etc. And so, a Red Sox holiday should have some celebratory foods as well... cake, rally cookies, and cupcakes!

My boys, the Boston Red Sox, are World Champs for the second time in 4 years.... 82 years earlier than some people cynically believed. As Sunday rolled into Monday and my heart thumped away with each pitch, I was already dreaming of what I could make and share with my friends in celebration.

True, they're not the prettiest cupcakes ever, but I was working on short notice with few ingredients. I mean, I didn't want to jinx anything by buying the ingredients ahead of time!

The cake is vanilla, tinted an insane red shade. A coworker asked what I used to get them that color. My response? "Ground-up Cleveland Indians. My next batch will use purple Rockies dust."